Meet the three women rowing across the Pacific in the name of education

Next year four women will undertake the ultimate challenge and attempt to row
across the largest ocean in the world: the Pacific, all in the name of
education. Rebecca Clancy meets three of them, as they launch their
search for their fourth crew member.

Four women will attempt to row across the Pacific Ocean. Here are three of them: left to right: Lizzie Williams, Kate Gibbs and Skipper Sarah Weldon.

These plucky women will face up to eight months in a boat, will get no more than two hours sleep at a time and will have to contend with up to 50ft waves.

On top of that they will also have to row across the famous ‘Great White Café’ – where female great white sharks hang out to feed - in the first leg of the route from Monterey Bay in California to Hawaii.

A great white shark

On the second leg from Hawaii to Cairns in Australia they will cross the deepest ocean trenches and be completely alone for months, with only each other for company.

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Their boat measures just 6ft wide and 23ft long, with two cabins at either end – one for sleeping and one for storage. The sleeping cabin is only big enough for two people to sleep at any one time and even then they will not be able to stretch out.

They will face storms that will force all four of them to live in the cabin for as long as three to four days.

So who are the four women undertaking this seemingly crazy challenge and why on solid earth would they want to?

‘Four Birds A Boating’ is the brain child of 37-year-old Sarah Weldon. She came up with the idea while she was a teacher in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. As part of her class she showed the students the BBC Oceans Project and they also started to follow the journey of Roz Savage, who was rowing solo across the Indian Ocean.

During tensions in Georgia, Sarah trialled an online classroom, which then allowed those with couldn’t attend school to be able to interact still, and it is thisonline classroomthat she will take with her on the boat so she can teach the kids about the ocean and environment while at sea.

Sarah says it was the kids that pushed her to believe she could row across the Pacific.

“I never thought I was brave enough. I have never thought of myself as an adventurer on that scale,” she says.

“But the kids gave me the confidence. They really inspired me and said ‘why don’t you row across an ocean?’ So here I am.”

Sarah left Georgia in December last year, as the government, which she had worked for, changed and left her position uncertain.

Despite heralding from Henley, Sarah admits she knew very little about rowing and wasn’t even really aware that it was something that women did.

“It never occurred to me that it was open to everyone but I went down to my local rowing club when I got home and there were women of all ages out in boats,” she says.

Having originally devised the plan for the row in Georgia with three other people who were to be her crew mates, on returning to their respective countries, they slowly started to drop out until Sarah remained the only original member left.

It did not take long to find another willing participate in the form of 30-year-old Royal Navy Lieutenant Kate Gibbs, who came on board in March.

The third member is 22-year-old Lizzie Williams who graduated from university this summer. Her father is Great Britain’s rowing coach Robin Williams, but she herself had never really learnt to row.

Lizzie (L), Sarah and Kate

They are currently recruiting for a fourth member.

The row will not just be about endurance, but, as mentioned, will also be used for education and science.

While at sea the women will provide free, online science, technology, engineering, maths and environmental lessons live from the boat, continuing the teachings that Sarah started while she was in Georgia.

“We want to bring the oceans alive using pioneering ‘live from boat’ technology which will enable us to be the eyes and ears of the young people will teach,” Sarah says.

They will also be carrying out ‘citizen science’. “We'll be able to collect data from a remote location that a lot of scientists wouldn't ever get to visit,” says Sarah.

Examples of their 'citizen science'

The girls themselves will also be the subject of the science as they keep logs of their eating, weight, and any back pain from being in the rowing position for so long.

So now the girls find themselves training three to four hours a day, five times a week to be ready.

The first leg of their journey will be part of the Great Pacific Race – the first ocean rowing event to take place on the Pacific Ocean.

While there will be other boats around for this part of their challenge, which is expected to take between 30 to 35 days, it could still take the support boat up to three days to reach them if anything does go wrong.

From Hawaii they will set off alone to Australia.

At any one time there will be two of them rowing, on a rota of two-hours on, two-hours off.

The two-hours off will be spent doing emails, eating and boat maintenance – which includes barnacle cleaning.

For some ocean rowers this is the most feared part of the challenge, as it is for Kate. Each week one of the rowers must jump overboard in to the deep blue sea and clean the barnacles off the bottom of the boat.

“I’m not bothered about the sea and cleaning barnacles but I’m bothered about what is going to be watching me,” says Kate.

Sarah is equally apprehensive. “I’m more afraid of my imagination. It’s the deepest ocean in the world. It’s the not knowing what it out there. Anything could be lurking beneath us.”

For Lizzie, her biggest fear is being on the boat itself. “It’s a very small space,” she says.

So how do you prepare for life at sea? The boat, named The Toad, will be ready in December and from the start of next year, until it is shipped to California at the end of April, the girls will begin taking the boat out to sea, spending a few days away at a time, to get used to the boat and each other.

The Toad will look similar to thisocean rowing boat

But it’s not just about knowing how to row. They will have to be mentally tough, get used to the repetition and if anything goes wrong on the boat they will have to know how to fix it. They will be involved with the process of the boat build, learning how it goes together.

“We have to have a personal relationship with the boat as it will keep us alive,” says Kate. “If we look after the boat, it will look after us.”

The boat is heavily reliant on technology, including their navigation, which will all be solar powered.

The boat is also designed to right itself if it does capsize and to ensure they will know what to do if this happens, as part of their training the girls will be put it the boat while a crane turns them upside down, while out at sea.

As well as dealing with this, they will burn more than 8,000 calories a day and will typically consumer 5,000. For water they will use a desalination device. And all that food has to go somewhere. The toilet will be a bucket hung over the side of the boat which will be right next to the rowing position.

And aside from being mentally and physically fit, they also need sponsors to help them raise the £200,000 that is needed for the row to go ahead.

With just under a year before they start their journey at sea, the women are aware of the risks but excited by the challenge ahead.

And if they succeed they will join just 14 other crews that have successfully rowed across the Pacific Ocean, from East to West, since it was first completed in 1971.

And if you think you have the sea legs to join them, they are having a recruitment day to find the final member tomorrow, on Saturday 28 September. They will be at the Five Horse Shoes near Henley-on-Thames from 1.30pm. More details can be found on their website.